pemmican?”
“No,” said Susan.
“Why not?” said Roger.
“You’ll be ill, like you were on your last birthday.”
Roger thought for a minute. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“Well, you’re not going to try,” said Susan.
Susan was in a very native mood that day, as Able-seaman Titty observed. Perhaps the adventures of the night were heavier on her conscience than on those of the other Swallows. Perhaps she needed sleep. Her mood showed itself in not allowing Roger and Titty to bathe the moment they had finished their breakfast-dinner meal of Grape Nuts, eggs, bread and marmalade, bread and pemmican, bunloaf and marmalade, bananas fresh from the tree (the Amazons had only eaten two each, and there were still plenty on the bunch), seed cake and tea. Also washing up had to be done at once in a very native manner. And when that was done there were buttons to sew on.
“How you manage to lose such a lot of buttons, I can’t think,” she said to Roger.
“Well, you would make me put on two of everything,” said Roger, “and there wasn’t room in one of them for both.”
There had been little time for talk in the early morning when the captain, the mate, and the boy had come sailing home to find the able-seaman with her prize anchored by Cormorant Island and the Amazons marooned on Wild Cat Island and in a dreadful hurry to get back. And now, of course, Titty wanted to hear all about the Amazon River, and Roger had plenty to say about the lagoon that was full of octopuses that